PHIL ODGERS – Sunday Morning Coming Down – Vinyl Stac Records VSREP001

Phil Odgers, better known to his friends as Swill, has developed an interesting solo career alongside The Men They Couldn’t Hang. With Paul Simmonds there was Baby Fishlips and the long-lost Liberty Cage album before the formation of The Swaggerband. Here he’s completely solo with help from Mick Glossop on production and Pro-Tools.

Sunday Morning Coming Down is an EP of covers. TMTCH have always done covers but ‘Rawhide’ and ‘Gudbye T’Jane’ aren’t quite the same. Now Swill casts himself as the outsider. ‘I’m A Lonesome Fugitive’ sums up the character; ‘The Parting Glass’ is the ultimate moving-on song and the central figure of Tom Waits’ ‘Bottom Of The World’ is as far down as he can get. The hero of the title track may be further up the social scale but he’s equally alone in the middle of a city.

Swill doesn’t do anything too fancy with the songs: voice, guitars, harmonica and keyboards is all. In fact, you could say that he’s respectful of the material which wasn’t always the case twenty-five years ago. I could take a lot more in this vein, though, alongside The Men and The Swaggerband.

Dai Jeffries

Artist Weblink: https://www.tmtch.co.uk/


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